The Swarm
by RaptorusMaximus
Summary: An accident in a far away corner of the universe introduces a new threat to the galaxy a long time ago and far, far away...
1. Chapter 1

Hey! This is my first fanfic. Just an idea I had floating around in my head for a while. Please R&R!

Oh, and I don't own anyone or anything from 40k or Star Wars, so please don't sue me.

Chapter 1: Something New

_Silence._

_Empty._

_Alone._

These were the first sensations that passed through the mind of the Leviathan Hive-Ship after the event.

For a moment, it was confused. Just minutes before, it had been directing its fleet in a battle with a group of prey-vessels over a green planet full of biomass. Then, the lead prey-ship had fired something, a salvo of…it struggled to find a term, then settled on one taken from the mind of a prey-creature: torpedoes. It fired a salvo of torpedoes then there was a flash of light and color, then the Leviathan found itself in empty space.

_Alone._

The feeling came again. It was not due to actually being alone, for it was surrounded by fellow bio-ships, from its tiny seven-hundred meter long war drone escorts to its two brother Leviathans, measuring in at over six kilometers.

No, the feeling came from a silence. A silence the leviathan had never experienced before. It was the silence of the chattering of trillions of minds, a silence from the force that bound the race together, the silence of the voice that had driven its kind since the beginning of time.

The Hive Mind was quiet.

The Leviathan started to writhe in the darkness of space, overcome by the silence and confused by the lack of guidance. Around it, the other organisms of the fleet whirred around, thrashing their appendages and crashing into each other. They were acting on instinct alone, not knowing what to do.

_**STOP!**_

A psychic command echoed through the mind of the Leviathan and every other creature in the fleet. It came from a chamber that sat inside the center of the Leviathan's body. Within the cavity, a great intelligence rested in its corporeal form, twisting and splitting and melding the DNA of millions of species to create the perfect organism for any problem. She had a great fat body, like that of an enormous worm, capped with a distended, eyeless head that housed her enormous brain. The head was capped with a protective crown of chitin. She was the mother of the species, and they would obey and defend her to their deaths.

She was their Norn Queen.

She reached out and touched the mind of the Leviathan, and guided it to a tiny, unnoticed thread of consciousness.

_**Look. Here**_

The thread whispered, whispered in a voice that could never be heard by the ears, only felt by the mind. It was an endless whisper, the purpose of an entire species distilled into three words, repeated endlessly for as long as their species survived.

Adapt

Consume

Survive

The Hive Mind's control flowed through the countless millions of light-years separating the leviathan from its kind, asserting its dominance over it, and then reaching out to take control of the rest of the bio-ships in the fleet, intertwining all their thoughts, feelings, senses, _beings_, together into one great consciousness.

Control was restored, and the ships settled.

With the vessels connected, the Leviathan knew that a prowler vanguard vessel had spotted something in the distance. It was silvery, it had lights, and it was moving.

It was prey.

As one, and in perfect synchronization, the fleet turned towards the object, intent on continuing the eternal work of their kind.

It was time to feed.

...

"Uh… Sir? What happened to the hostiles?" asked a young deck officer.

"I…I don't know. Those vortex torpedoes can do a lot of damage, but not destroy an entire bloody Hive Fleet!" responded Admiral Vorpo. He stood on the bridge of the "Intrepid Aquilla", a Vengeance-Class Grand cruiser and the flagship of battlefleet Cloricus.

Just a moment before, he and his fleet had been fighting a losing battle to defend Cloricus Alphus from the encroaching splinter of hive fleet Megalodon, and Vorpo launched his vortex torpedoes to try to 'thin the herd', and instead the whole enemy fleet disappeared! He wanted to know why.

He turned to the vox operator. "Get me the chief Techpriest."

"Eye sir!"

A moment later, a crackling, mechanical, emotionless voice came out of the speaker. "What do you want sir?" it said.

"Falron," Vorpo struggled to keep his voice level, "I want to know what happened to the enemy. What did the torpedoes do?"

"Give me a moment…" Falron's voice trailed off. The bridge grew silent as everyone waited to hear the response. Some of the younger officers even leaned closer to the com station in their eagerness for an answer.

Finally, the vox crackled to life. "I think I've got it," came Falron's voice through the speaker, "it seems that the vortex torpedoes were faulty. Instead of opening a portal and tearing parts of the target into the warp, they all reacted together to create a rift in space time, effectively transporting the fleet to another part of the universe." He paused. "We're very lucky that we're still here. We should have been sucked into the portal with them."

_Well, mystery solved,_ thought Vorpo.

"Admiral!" yelled the sensor officer. "I've picked up something. It seems a few bio-ships escaped the event and are attacking the fleet. What are your orders?"

Snapped back into focus by the promise of action, Vorpo strode to the golden command throne set into the center of the bridge. He sat down, his body settling easily to the shape of the chair he spent more time in than his bed.

"Command the fleet to converge on any groups and annihilate them with overwhelming firepower." He gazed out the armorglass bridge window, staring out into the stars.

"Whatever happened to splinter-fleet Chimera, they're someone else's problem now." He mumbled to himself as his beloved ship unleashed the emperor's wrath upon the forgotten Bio-ships.


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks to LordCommanderMilitant for correcting me on ship sizes.

The next chapter will take a while. I had these two written up already, so...yeah.

Chapter 2: First contact

"Pog, we're approaching the location you gave us, and we haven't seen anything noteworthy. Just some stray asteroids. You sure you picked up something?"

"I'm sure Baran. Just keep your eyes open. There is something weird out there"

Baran rolled his eyes and cut the communication. Beside him, his Twi'Lek co-pilot and girlfriend, Minerva, flew the ship onwards towards the source of the 'readings.' Her purple skin shone slightly in the light of the cockpit. Every few seconds, her Lekku would twitch, a sure sign she was bored. Her clothing consisted of a pair of brown leather pants, an orange "I heart Nunas" T-shirt he had won for her at a carnival a few months ago, and her signature dewback scale vest. At her hip was her DC-17 blaster pistol, and the hilt of a vibro-knife stuck out of her nerfhide boot. She looked over at him and smiled her beautiful, gleaming smile.

_What did I ever do to land a woman like this?_ He thought happily.

_It certainly wasn't my looks. _He looked down at himself. He was a lanky twenty-four year old man with a scruffy beard and a mildly-handsome face. He wore an old green muscle shirt stained with oil, a pair of kaki cargo pants, and some comfy shoes perfect for running from bouncers, security officers or angry ex-girlfriends.

"How close are we?" asked Minerva, snapping him out of his self reflection.

Baran looked at the sensors. "About ten minutes away from the co-ordinates Pog gave us."

Huh, Pog. The boss's pet tech-wiz had picked up some 'strange readings' out here during his routine scans. And Baran, well, he owed Pog for fixing up his ship after he lost an argument with the captain of a republic _Consular_-class frigate over the legality of transporting rocket launchers into separatist space and he ran. So, he owed Pog a favor, and if that favor was to chase the hallucinations of a paranoid Quaren, well, there were worse ways to repay a debt.

"Sir would you like a hot beverage?" said a pleasant, cheery, and o-so-annoyingly high pitched voice from behind him. He immediately felt a bad mood rise from the bottom of his chest, quashing the good feelings that had filled him moments before.

Slowly, Baran turned his chair until he was facing a bronze protocol droid.

"No P4O7, I don't want a hot beverage," he said in his most condescending voice, "go back to your closet."

P4 slumped slightly, Baran noticed with slight satisfaction, as he started to shuffle towards his charging station in an alcove just behind the cockpit.

Minerva glared at him as he swiveled his chair back around. Baran just shrugged and began going over the control panel.

Minerva narrowed her eyes. She looked over her shoulder and called "P4! I'll have some tea if it's not too much trouble."

The droid turned around, perking up immediately. "No, mistress! No trouble at all!" He said, and trundled off the small kitchen at the rear of the ship.

She turned back to Baran, anger apparent in her eyes.

"Why are you always so mean to him?" she said.

Baran looked up from the control panel he was studying and said idly, "It's because he is annoying, he always gets in my way and he serves no practical purpose in our line of work."

"You just don't like him because my last boyfriend got him for me!"

He opened his mouth to respond when a flash of movement outside the view screen caught his eye. He turned to look and his mouth dropped open. "Minerva, look…" he began to say.

"Don't change the subject! You always do this…"

Baran had stopped listening, transfixed by the sight before him. Outside, a swarm of…things was gliding through space towards them. There were hundreds of the creatures, in so many shapes and sizes his eyes didn't know what to focus on. The only similarity between one beast and the next was their coloration. They all had leathery skin the color of a clear sky, a brilliant bright blue, and plates of deep red chitinous armor that covered much of their bodies.

Eventually, his attention was fixed on a trio of massive beasts that sat at the centre of the swarm. They resembled enormous squid, with tubular bodies and long tentacles drifting through the vacuum behind them. Smaller, crab-like creatures clung to the tentacles. However, unlike squid, their eyes and mouth were located at the front of their bodies. Their mouths resembled that of a shark, filled with rows of giant, serrated teeth. The flanks of the beasts were riddled with round protrusions, the function of which escaped him.

All the other beasts on the…fleet...clustered around these three monsters like bees swarming around their hive. They dwarfed all the other beasts, measuring in at (he guessed) around six kilometers long, bigger than a separatist dreadnought.

He tore his eyes away from the spectacle to look at Minerva, who had also noticed the swarm. She leaned forward in her chair, eyes wide, mouth open in the shape of an O, staring at the creatures. The shock and excitement was written all over her face.

"What are they?" she quietly asked.

"I have no idea." He said. "I have never seen anything remotely like this before."

"So they're a new species?" Minerva said excitedly. "This is incredible! We have to notify someone…" she trailed off as four creatures accelerated away from the group towards the ship.

The creatures were menacing looking. They had armored, cone shaped bodies with three long, sickle-looking claws at the wide end of the body, circling around mouth lined with numberless teeth. Each of them had a pair of glowing green eyes that glared at them, and the two could almost feel the malice emanating from the beasts.

"I do not like the look of them." Minerva said.

Baran grabbed the controls. "I'm getting us out of here." He hit the thrusters and pulled the ship into a tight right turn away from the swarm and the approaching creatures.

"Give me that." Minerva grabbed the controls. "I'm a better pilot than you."

Suddenly, they hear the screech of tearing metal and they are thrown from their seats as the ship decelerates rapidly. From the kitchen they hear the crash of glasses shattering and a clang as P4 fell over with a loud "oh my!"

"What happened?" groaned Baran.

Minerva got up and flipped on the monitor for the camera at the back of the ship. Baran pulled himself up and looked over her shoulder at the monitor. What he saw sent a chill down his spine.

One of the beasts had harpooned the ship with a pair of long, fleshy tendrils that attached to the inside of the monsters mouth. The tendrils ended in boney spikes, which were firmly lodged in the hull of the ship, and as they watched, the tendrils began to retract into its mouth, slowly pulling the ship towards the predators.

"Minerva! Try to shake them loose. I'll man the gun." Baran cried, turning to run from the cockpit.

"P4!" He called. The droid's head emerged from the kitchen "Strap yourself in. This is this is going to get rough."

"Not necessary, sir. My feet can be magnetized, so I can withstand any turbulence we may encounter."

Baran wasn't listening, he had already yanked open a floor hatch and was climbing down a ladder to the belly gun of his ship. He strapped himself into the gunner chair, put on his headset and powered up the guns that sat on either side of him.

The guns were two quad-barreled laser cannons hooked up to a single trigger and targeting system. They could put out a punishing 400 shots a minute, shredding whatever had the misfortune of being caught in their crosshairs. Baran had taken to calling them 'the punishers', due to what they did to any vessel stupid enough to attack his ship.

He hoped they would teach the same lesson to these creatures.

He swiveled the guns to face the coming monsters. He could only see one of them, but that was enough. He centered the beast in his sights and pulled the trigger. A wave of green light blasted through space. The lasers hit, scorching the armor of the creature and burning its flesh, but not doing any real damage.

Baran started to panic a bit, firing again, pressing the trigger harder to try to coax a bit more fire from the guns.

Finally, one of the armor plates on the creature's head cracked and broke away. Laser bolts punched into the soft flesh underneath, causing immense internal damage. The beast thrashed in pain, black ichor spraying into space, then froze, finally succumbing to its injuries.

Baran allowed himself a moment to savor his victory, and then called into his headset "Minerva, I got one, but I can't see any of the others. Can you give me a better view?"

"Got it." Came her reply.

The ship went into a steep climb, trying to gain height on the monsters. Two of the creatures came into view, and Baran unloaded into the creatures. The one creature died the same way as the first, with an armor plate shattering and lasers tore its insides apart. The second creature took a lucky shot through the eye, killing it instantly.

"Two more down, but I can't see the last one!"

…

Minerva was jerking and twisting the ship in every maneuver she could think of, but no matter what she did she could neither shake the creature that had attached itself to the ship or bring it into Baran's line of sight long enough for him to kill it.

Glancing at the view screen for the rear camera, she saw that the monster was only a few dozen meters away from the ship. The rest of the swarm was still there, in the distance, getting steadily closer.

"I can't get a shot!" yelled Baran through the headset.

"I'm working on it!" she yelled back.

"Mistress?"

"Not now, P4," she called, pulling the ship into a spinning dive.

"But, Mistress…"

"NOT NOW!"

P4 huffed, then turned and started walking towards the rear of the ship. _No one ever listens to me._ He thought. He walked past his alcove, past the dining area, over the hatch to the turret (he could hear the cannons firing), past the airlock and the weapons locker, which contained Minerva's blaster rifle and Baran's trandoshan shotgun. He walked past the bunks and the main hatch to the cargo bay.

Then, he reached his destination, a small control panel set beside a head sized, round viewport. Through the viewport, he could see the creature pulling itself closer to the ship, and Baran's desperate shots flying off into space.

P4 entered several commands into the panel and hit the confirmation. He heard a clunk and saw a metal cylinder float away from the ship towards the creature.

If he had a mouth, P4 would have smiled.

…

The drone flexed its claws, eager to grab this silver-green prey, latch on, and feast on its insides. Dimly, it noticed the prey-thing release a cone-like object that was floating towards the drone. On impulse, it snapped at the object, caught, and swallowed it. Returning its attention to the prey, it continued to retract its flesh hooks, pulling itself to this meal.

Three seconds later, it exploded.

…

Minerva stared at the view screen, where only moments before a monster had been anchored to her ship with the intention of eating it. Now, there was only a cloud of blood, bone, and shreds of flesh falling into the distance behind the ship.

Baran's voice came over the com, "Uh…Minerva...did you…?"

"No, I…I don't…what?" she stuttered.

"It was a concussion mine."

Minerva turned to see P4 walk into the cockpit. Through the hatch, she could see Baran climbing out of the gun turret, looking just as confused by the spontaneous explosion of the creature as she was.

"What?" he asked.

The droid turned to Baran. "I concluded that the Mistress would be unable to dislodge the organism with her maneuvers, and you would be unable to kill it before it reached the ship, so I released a concussion mine on a five second timer in an attempt to kill it. Of course, I did not think the beast would _swallow _the mine…" he trailed off, looking back and forth between the two incredulous organics. "Did I do something wrong?"

Minerva broke out into a wide grin and caught the stunned droid in a hug. Baran even cracked a smirk, saying "Not bad, P4, not bad at all."

"I appreciate your gratitude," said P4-07, "but the rest of the swarm is still approaching."

He pointed over Minerva's shoulder at the rear view screen. The Twi'Lek and the human turned and saw the rest of the swarm, in the distance, but approaching swiftly.

The two of them jumped back into their seats and grabbed the controls. Their hands flew over the instruments, checking the ships systems.

"Can we outrun them?" Minerva asked.

"No, the creature's tendrils damaged a fuel line. We've only got 55% speed." Baran replied.

"Then…we can call for help!"

"No, the communication array was damaged too. Anyway, there is no ship in the vicinity big enough firepower to take on that swarm."

"Then what do you suggest we do!"

He looked at her. "We _can_ get to lightspeed. We have just enough power to reach Carok III."

Minerva wheeled on him, an incredulous look on her face. "Carok III? Are you crazy! That is a republic base! If we go there, we'll be found, and we _will_ get arrested. Or did you forget the price the republic has on our head?!"

"It's a better option than staying here to be eaten, or…whatever these things will do."

"Then, if we can go to lightspeed, why not go back to the station?"

"Minerva, there is no safe rout back to the station from here." Baran said. "This is our only hope."

Minerva slouched back into her seat. "Do it," she muttered.

Baran hurriedly punched in the co-ordinates and hit the switch. A deep, undulating whine filled the ship as the hyperdrive powered up. Outside the cockpit, the stars started to stretch and flash by, and with a deep WHUMP, the ship entered hyperspace.

"Sir?"

"What is it?" Baran said, turning to the protocol droid. His appreciation for the droid was already fading, already replaced by his usual distain for the robot.

"This has been a very taxing event. If you don't mind, I will return to my alcove to recharge." The droid turned to leave the cockpit, but stopped at the door. He looked back, as if he remembered something. "Sir, I did a calculation of the swarm's trajectory, and there is an 83% chance that, if the follow their current course, they will discover the station."

Minerva jerked in her chair. "No! Pog! Yanax! We have to warn them!" she said to Baran.

Baran looked back at her, his eyes filled with sadness and regret. "We can't." He turned and looked out into the endless expanse of hyperspace. "They're on their own".

…

He loved this.

This feeling. This…freedom he got. A freedom from all the stresses he had to deal with, the petty squabbling of all the little people with their little plans. Listening to Alamog going on and on about how unfair it was for him to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere watching his uncle's station. So, whenever he got the chance, he would retreat to his chamber, and just…drift.

His mind was disconnected from his body, floating along through the station. He looked behind him, and saw his body, cross-legged on the floor of his chamber, a serene look on his face.

He turned and flew through the station, watching all the beings going about their business. He could see everything. Here, Pog sat in the scanner array, pouring over the screens, apparently worried about something. But then, Pog was always worried, so he moved on.

There, Zek eyed Morag, one of his rivals, and fingered at the grip of his blaster. Maybe today he would get the courage to try to end him. _Hm, not likely, _he thought

And, oh, he saw that Pam was "breaking in" a new boyfriend.

All of the sudden, he felt something brush against his mind. On reflex, he recoiled, surprised by the contact. _Another force user?_ He reached out with his mind, and found the foreign entity. It was unlike any mind he had ever encountered. It seemed like there where millions of thoughts coming from this one strand of thought.

Curious, he followed the trail of thoughts away from the station, out into the surrounding asteroid field. He flew through space, tracking the thoughts through space, until, to his surprise, he came across a ship.

_What is a ship doing out here in the middle of nowhere? _He soared into the ship and, to his surprise, found Baran and Minerva arguing. What where these two doing out here?

Then, pain. Excruciating pain. He recoiled from it and flew outside the ship.

The pain came in the form of screams. They reverberated inside his skull, threatening to rip his sanity asunder. With a desperate mental shove, he was able to escape the noise for a moment, just long enough for him to locate the source of the screaming.

Before him loomed a vast swarm, hundreds of alien creatures swimming through space. But that was not all.

In his spiritual form, he could see the black tendrils of thought that reached out from the creatures and probed the surrounding space. Several tendrils that had reached out for him had been dislodged by his panicked shove. Now, they attacked with renewed vigor.

The tendrils wrapped around his spirit and again, the pain assailed him. But this time, it was less, and he could feel that someone was rummaging around in his memories. Angered at this violation, he struck at the foreign mind with a lance of furry and willpower.

For a brief moment, he was in the enemy mind. He only got a glimpse, but in that glimpse, he saw a dark chamber filled with a vast creature and a floor covered in squirming, gooey eggs. He also got saw the mind of his opponent, and it was a vast, incomprehensible, _alien,_ mind. It possessed a vast, iron-willed intelligence, and behind that, something else.

It was a deep, unrelenting, insatiable, _**hunger.**_

Filled with a sudden, irrational fear, he tore himself away from the contact, just in time to see Baran's ship jump into hyperspace.

And then he fled, as fast as he could, back to the station, all the while pursued by the tendrils and their screams.

…

The man awoke with a start, jerking out of his trance-like state violently. He tried to stand but was immediately hit with unrelenting waves of nausea and pain. He fell to his knees and vomited onto the floor of the small room. After several minutes of reaching, he curled up on his side and hugged his knees to his chest, shaking, waiting for the pain to subside.

He didn't know how long he remained like that, but eventually he awoke from a troubled sleep and uncurled his stiff muscles. He sat up and opened his eyes. He looked around his Spartan quarters, seeing his desk, chair and thin cot exactly where he left them when he started his meditation. The only difference was the puddle of vomit that sat in front of him.

He grimaced at the smell and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It came away streaked with vomit…and blood. Shocked, he touched his nose. More blood.

_That attack-it must have hurt my body as well as my mind. _He thought.

In the silence, he noticed that he could hear a faint scratching, and…screams? But, he realized, they were not coming from anywhere around him. They were in his mind. The creatures had followed him.

Grimly, he stood up and extended his right hand. A metal object floated of the floor where he left it.

Attaching his lightsaber to his belt, Jedi Master Yanax Helon strode from his room to talk to Alamog.

Something was coming. Something terrible.

And it would consume them all.


	3. Chapter 3

Sorry for the long wait. Had lots of...well, life going on. The next chapter will probably take about as long, and will have more action.

Thanks for reading, and please R&R!

...

Chapter 3: The stage is set.

Pog was panicking.

He had sent Baran out to look into the disturbance he had picked up while doing his scans. He knew that it was probably nothing, and he was _positive _that Baran thought it was nothing, but...well, there had been this feeling, this hunch. So, he sent them out. And, turns out, he was right.

He had never wished to be wrong so much in his life.

Now, he was frantically scanning the space surrounding the space station, using every trick in his arsenal, searching for the ship, or ships, he knew where hiding. But, try as he might, the screens just kept showing up blank. In fact, with every passing moment, he was getting fewer readings from the surrounding space. It was like…

Pog stopped.

It was like _something was blocking the signals_!

Elated at this realization, he ran to another console and flicked on one of the exterior cameras, expecting to see ships closing in on the station.

What he saw made him scream.

Terrified, he turned on the other cameras, only to have his horror amplified to new levels.

_Their everywhere!_ He thought. _We're surrounded!_

Pog emerged from the sensor room with a wild gleam in his wide eyes, his tentacles flailing, and gibberish spilling from his mouth. He fled from the room, to talk to Alamog.

Or to hide.

For he had seen monsters through those cameras.

And he knew the monsters had seen him.

…

The Norn queen was pleased.

She had ordered the ships of the fleet to surround the prey-station and to prevent the escape of any vessels that tried to flee. But, there had been none. These prey seemed much less cautious than those she was used to.

Through the eyes of her children, the Queen saw that there were several ships docked on the station. Not wanting this prey to vanish like the one before, she ordered the drones to destroy all the ships on the outside of the station.

As her minions glided through space on their mission, she pondered which bioforms would be best suited for the upcoming boarding. After a few moments, she decided to keep it simple, and send in tier one bioforms, Hormagaunts, Genestealers, and Termagants with fleshborers.

But who to lead them? Her consort, the hive tyrant, would take too long to awaken. Anyway, the passages on the station would likely be too small for him to fit through.

Then, an idea occurred to her. Her Tyrant had a brood of Warriors cultivated from his DNA to be his bodyguards during the consumption of a world full of the green ones ages ago. Most of the brood had been slain by the green one's leader and his warriors, but, one of their number still existed.

He was a Prime warrior now, with his own brood. And, the Queen thought, he has a certain knack for close combat.

Yes, she mused, this one will be perfect. She sent out the signal to awaken the hordes.

…

"No." Alamog said.

Yanax grimaced. He had expected Alamog to be resistant to his plan. "My Lord, please, here me out. I…"

"NO!" Alamog boomed. "I will not abandon this station. Especially not on the word of a liar!" Around the lavishly decorated throne room, pig-like Gormelian guards tightened their grips on their vibro-axes, and wrinkly Queegway mercenaries flipped the safeties on their blasters.

Yanax grew cold. _No, he couldn't have found out! I covered my tracks perfectly!_ He thought. "Great Alamog, I have never lied to you!" He feigned shock at the accusation.

"But you have, Yanax. Or should I call you Master Jedi?" Alamog sneered. "I know who you really are. You came here to collect evidence against me! Don't bother denying it; my informant was very thorough in his investigation."

Yanax relaxed his tensed up muscles in preparation for a fight. "You are making a mistake!" He said. He turned to look at the bodyguards, hirelings, and general scum who were gathered around the circular room. "Listen to me! There is something coming for this station. I have seen them, and heard their thoughts! They _will_ kill us all. Please, you have to believe me!"

A hint of desperation entered his voice, and the beings in the room started to look at each other, worriedly, and Yanax felt a glimmer of hope that he could turn this around.

However, all went quiet as Alamog let out the deep, rumbling growl he used to get the attention of his court. He locked eyes with Yanax. "One million credits for the one who brings me his head."

Every creature in the room pulled out a weapon and charged at Yanax. However, he was already moving.

He reached under his cloak and pulled out his lightsaber. He thumbed the activation switch and a meter of green light burst from the hilt. He was running towards the area with the least concentration of enemies, Alamog's throne. A gormelian stepped towards him and swung its ax at Yanax's head. He spun under the blade, slashing horizontally at the guard. His saber cut the legs of the alien off just above the knees. It fell to the floor, squealing in pain.

Before him loomed the massive, slug-like form of Alamog, wriggling and squealing in fear, thinking Yanax meant to slay him. He had no such intentions, though, and only wished to escape the mob closing in on him. He bunched his legs to leap over the Hutt and his throne, when an explosion rocked the station. Yanax stumbled, and then fell as a second and third explosion followed the first.

He scrambled to his feet and looked around, seeing everyone else lying on the floor. They started to get up, looks of confusion and fear on their faces.

"What," said a Queegway in a gravelly voice "was that?"

"It's them." Yanax whispered, his voice filled with terror. All eyes turned to him. "They're here!"

…

_Several minutes earlier…_

"Ok, Worg, time to pay up. Alamog wants his money."

The star dock was all but deserted. The only people there were a seven foot tall, orange-skinned Trandosian who was climbing out of the cargo bay of a rusty old freighter docked with the station, and a pair of Gormelians escorting a blue Rodian towards the ship. The Trandosian glanced at the speaker (the rodian) and turned to close the cargo bay door.

"He knowsss I don't have it on me, Quill. I'll pay Alamog when I get this ssspice to Vinar." The Trandosian said dismissively

The Rodian narrowed his eyes. "Alamog doesn't wait. If you won't give us the money, we'll take it! Boys!" The Gormelians hefted their axes and charged Worg.

The reptilian dove towards the boarding ramp of his ship, pulling out a vibro-knife as he did. Twisting in the air, he whipped the blade at the nearest guard. It flew through the air and embedded itself hilt-deep in the pig's neck. It fell the ground, writhing, grasping at the handle on the knife, green, viscous blood spurting across the deck.

The second guard, ignoring his comrade, closed in and swung his ax in an overhand chop. Worg ducked to the side and punched the man in his flabby stomach. He doubled over, and Worg delivered a downwards elbow smash to the back of his head. The guard's eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground.

Worg stood up and glared at Quill, who was slowly backing away from the ship, rage gleaming in the Trandosian's eyes.

"You little _whelp!_" He growled, stalking towards the rodian. "You thought you could take _me? ME! _I've killed thingssss that would usssse you as a toothpick!"

Quill turned to run. Worg stooped and ripped his knife from the neck of the dead guard. The straitened and hurled the knife at the retreating alien. The knife spun through the air and buried itself into Quill's shoulder. He let out a yelp of pain and fell to the floor, twisting in an attempt to reach the knife.

Worg bent and grabbed the vibro-axe from the hands of the guard at his feet and let the tip of the blade drag across the ground as he walked towards his victim, causing a metallic screech to echo around the empty deck. Quill froze were he lay, terrified by the noise. Worg planted his foot on the other man's back, bent over, and wrenched the knife from his flesh. Quill let out a pained groan and looked over his shoulder at the Trandosian towering over him, axe in one hand, bloody knife in the other.

He wiped the blade of the knife on Quill's shirt and returned it to its sheath on his hip. Worg placed the blade of the axe on the blue flesh of the rodians neck.

"Alamog ssshouldn't have come after me." He hissed. "It wasss a mistake"

"I know, I know! If you let me live, I'll tell him. I can make him leave you alone!" Quill pleaded.

Quill felt the hot air of the lizard's breath hit his skin as Worg leaned down to whisper in his ear "I deliver my own messagessss."

Quill closed his eyes as Worg raised the ax over his head.

As the blade began to fall, slicing through the air in its path, Worg's ship exploded.

The Trandosian took the full force of the explosion, the blast sending him flying forty feet through the air to land in a heap. He struggled to his knees, roaring in rage at his burning ship. "NO!" He screamed. "I had _three hundred thousand_ credits worth of spice on that ship!"

Quill, who was still on the ground, had been spared most of the force of the explosion. He had, however, been rolled over by the blast, and so he saw the creature before Worg. It was moving slowly away from what was left of Worg's ship. It had a tube-shaped body with several clusters of eyes placed at the front of the tube. At one end was a tangle of fleshy tendrils and at the other was a pair of strait "tusks" on either side of a small, toothless mouth. Several rows of small spines ran along the length of its body, and Quill could see electricity coursing along the spikes. As he watched, he saw massive arcs of blue lightning course along the spikes to the tusks, and a moment latter blast out in two beams of white light to strike a target outside his view. Another explosion resounded through the station, and the beast moved out of his line of sight.

"Heh."

Quill twisted to look over his shoulder and saw Worg standing, ax in hand, staring at the creature through the viewport. He had a wide, toothy grin plastered to his face, and a wild, insane fire in his eyes.

He shifted his gaze to the downed rodian. "Did you sssee that?" He looked back to the viewport, but the creature had gone. "Now _that _is worthy prey for the hunt! Did you sssee that lightning attack?"

Quill, ever arrogant, scoffed, "How do you plan to 'hunt' it? It's in space." He grimaced as his movements caused pain ton lance across his back.

The Trandosian glanced at the prone rodian, and turned to walk towards the exit. "Why do you think that it was destroying ssships?" He called over his shoulder. "The hunter is cutting off the prey'sss escape routes. Whatever thossse were, they'll be coming to claim their prize." He chuckled. "But they will find it has clawssss."

"Wait!" Quill called as Worg reached the doors. "What about me?"

Worg turned an evil smile on his face. "I'm sssure you'll make a wonderful appetizer."

And with that, he walked on, deeper into the station, Quill's cries of anger following him until the doors closed.

…

Meter by meter, Quill crawled.

First, he had tried to climb to his feet to pursue Worg and…somehow…get revenge. But, it was not to be, as when he tried to stand; pain ripped through his body and turned his legs to jelly, and he collapsed. After a few tries, he found he could crawl, slowly, on his hands and knees without too much pain. And so, he had crawled, and was now halfway to the door.

_Dam Worg._ Quill thought to himself. _Leaving me here, bleeding, on the cold ground! When I find him, I'll…_

His next thought failed to form, as he was distracted by a noise. It was a grinding noise, and it was coming from behind him. He looked over his shoulder at the thick duristeel wall of the outer hanger.

_No way can anything bore through that._ He worriedly reassured himself. He turned to resume his crawl when a loud screech rang out from behind him.

Terrified, he flipped onto his back in his haste to identify the source of the noise. Pain wracked his body, but was overwritten by his terror. Protruding from the wall was a spiky beak-looking thing. It snapped a few more times before realizing it had broken through the barrier. Then, it opened wide, to almost 180 degrees. The back of its mouth expanded, and it loudly vomited green, chunky goop onto the floor. A horrible smell rolled over Quill, and he started to reach at the sight and smell he was witnessing.

And then the goop started to move.

The chunks, which Quill had taken for pieces of food, where starting to chatter and screech, and began to move and get up. One of the creatures shook itself, spraying the liquid around, and allowing Quill to get a good look at the beast.

It was large, around two meters long. It had six limbs. The rearmost pair had hooves, the middle pair had small, curved claws, and the front most pair of limbs where equipped with long, scythe-like claws that it was using to help support itself. It had a crest of dark red bone on its head and spiky, overlapping plates of the same armor covering the top of its back. Its tail was almost the same length of the torso. But the head kept drawing his eye. It had two black, beady eyes that gleamed with evil intelligence. Its skull bulged at the rear, giving it an elongated shape, with three round indentations spaced along each side of the head, and it had a mouth full of razor sharp teeth.

Quill watched as another chunk rose to reveal a monster, and another, and another, until a full dozen of the things stood revealed, milling around in apparent confusion.

Suddenly, one of the creatures snapped its head up. Its nostrils flared, and Quill could hear it sucking in the stale hangar air. The head turned to him. The moment the beast saw him, it emitted a scream so loud Quill had to put his hands over his ears. All the other creatures looked at Quill and started screeching as well. The group began to skitter towards him with insectile leaps and hops. Quill scrambled backwards in an attempt to escape the approaching creatures. However, these efforts proved futile. The first creature leapt on him and began slashing at his flesh with the small claws on its middle set of limbs.

Quill screamed.

Another creature reached him and sank its teeth into his leg, shaking its head like an anooba with a womparat.

And Quill screamed.

The beasts piled on, bighting and tearing at the body of the rodian, slicing chunks of his flesh and tearing pieces of his meat from his body and gulping them down before their owner's eyes.

And still, Quill screamed.

Finally, the largest creature, the first Quill had seen, shoved aside the one hovering over Quill's chest, eating his arm, and looked down at the rodian. He was still screaming, green blood spilling from his mouth and wounds over his body. Without pause, it reared up and drove the two large scythe-claws on its forelimbs into his neck.

The screaming stopped.

The Hormagaunts continued to feast, while across the walls of the hangar, more assault-beaks carved through to disgorge their foul cargo.

The assault on Wando station had begun.


End file.
